(NOTE: FOUNDERS ARE LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
Scotch Whisky Founders
Highlands Region
The Northern Areas within Scotland.includes the Highlands Region
Below are links to Whisky Founders that have made huge contributions to the growth of the Highlands Region as well as the Scotch Whisky Industry as a whole. These may have been historical figures that lived long ago before prohibition or may be living leaders that have advanced the cause of the industry as a whole.
1
James Allardice
When James Allardice arrived at GlenDronach, the place was pre-anchored in a working estate setting: a house, a burn, farmland, and the kind of steady resources a licensed distillery needed: water, grain, and access to people who could supply and finance a stillhouse. On those foundations, Allardice established his distillery.
2
A.J. Cameron
Just 24 months after AJ Cameron was appointed Master Blender came the work for which he is most widely credited. In 1899, he created Dewar’s White Label, the blend that became the defining expression of the Dewar’s house style and, over time, one of the world’s best-known blended Scottish whiskies.
3
George Connell
George Connell was at Burnfoot Farm in 1820, distilling in secret. George had been born in 1795, the son of John and Elisabeth McDougal Connell, and from an early age, he learned the business of hidden distilling the way many did: not through a deed and an established apprenticeship, but through his grandfather.
4
Harold Currie
Hal Currie’s whisky career continued to shift with the industry. In 1974, Pernod purchased the House of Campbell Scotch whisky brand and asked Currie to become managing director. After Pernod and Ricard merged in 1975, he was promoted to head UK operations, until retiring in 1982.
5
John Dewer
John Dewar also leaned into something that seems obvious now—branding and packaging. He sold whisky in glass bottles bearing his name. A bottle with a name on it does more than hold liquid, it fixes accountability: If the whisky disappoints, the blame has an address. If it delights, the customer knows what to ask for next time.
6
William Fraser
William Fraser was planning a new future, and concerned that local farmers were selling grain into illicit distilling networks where smugglers could undercut anyone paying duty, he joined four other men in leasing a distillery site and adjacent farmland from the Earl of Cawdor. The result was Brackla.
7
George Leveson Gower
In 1819, G.L. Gower built the original Clynelish distillery. The distillery was meant to provide a market for barley grown by his tenants. Clynelish was a legal, organized outlet for agricultural production in a region where land, tenancy, and local livelihoods were under intense pressure and scrutiny.
8
John Grant
John Grant slowly came round to the idea of distilling whisky on-site, the decision helped along because in 1870, his sourcing distiller left Ballindalloch. At that point, John then went into full partnership with his now adult son George in running Glenfarclas more directly.
9
James Henderson
James Henderson founded Pulteney Distillery in Pulteneytown. At the beginning, conventional roads were lacking, so barley came by sea and whisky went out by sea, often handled by offseason workers who also fished for herring when they could. The port could support distribution when roads could not.
10
Stephanie MacLeod
For Stephanie MacLeod’s efforts with Dewar’s, recognition has justly followed, and in 2019, MacLeod became the first woman to win the International Whisky Competition’s “Master Blender of the Year” award. She has since won the title “Master Blender of the Year” five further consecutive years, six in all.
11
Alexander Matheson
In 1839, Alexander Matheson returned from Asia and, in that same year, created a whisky-making footprint that still defines a corner of the Highlands. The site at Dalmore, on the banks of the Cromarty Firth near Alness, had previously been a mill and farmyard, and Matheson converted it into a distillery.
12
Hugh MacAskill
Hugh MacAskill’s name is inseparable from Talisker because he arrived on Skye at a moment when land, money, and whisky were being reorganized all at once, and he helped turn a remote shore of Loch Harport into the site of what became the island’s oldest and most enduring distillery.
13
Long John MacDonald
John MacDonald led a mountain rescue for the Duchess of Buccleuch. In 1838, the Duchess and her retinue got lost in the mist during an ascent on Ben Nevis. An outdoorsy man from the beginning, Long John was the first rescuer to find the party, and rang a very large bell to attract the others’ attention.
14
Sir Alexander Ramsay
Alexander Ramsay secured a license and established Fettercairn Distillery on his land. The decision aligned closely with broader Highland patterns: landowners founding small, licensed distilleries intended to operate alongside farming rather than replace it. Fettercairn, then, was created as a method of estate management.
15
John Stevenson
John Stevenson and his brother established a brewery in Oban; in 1794, that brewery became the Oban distillery. Oban’s modern reputation is as an “urban” distillery, that is, still sitting within the town rather than out in the countryside, which shows that it was there early, before the town fully encased it.